He also still had both the glasses of sparkling wine he'd retrieved at the princess' command, their stems laced between his fingers and the bowls resting in his palm. He went back to the wine buffet and set the glasses down, looked at them, then picked one back up and took a long, tasting sip. He smiled again. 'Much too serious?' Well, perhaps.

The reception was winding down; the room had a sort of cheerily unfocused feel to it that could easily be explained by the empty bottles of sparkling wine gathered along one wall -- and then Qui-Gon sensed a small sharp finger of fear, anxiety that didn't belong there at all. He heard words from elsewhere, realizing the Force was carrying them -- and they were about him.

<"They know.">

<"They cannot know.">

Qui-Gon stretched out his awareness, but nothing was there. Gone.

"So, we're free," Valorum said. "Anything in particular you want to do? I went to school here, so I've pretty much been there, done it, and lived to lie about it to the local constabulary."

Qui-Gon shook his head no, then realized it was the wrong answer. "The grasslands," he said. The crown jewel of a gemlike planet.

Valorum smiled; it was exactly where he guessed the Jedi would want to go. What does an inscrutable guy want to see? Inscrutable landscape!

"Your wish is my command," he said grandly.

Qui-Gon nodded, releasing himself into the moment. He could find no trace now of the fear-flicker in the Force. It would return to lead him, or it wouldn't.

The grass stretched out to the horizon in every direction.

"I used to bring dates out here in my landspeeder," Valorum grinned. "For some reason girls find tall grass very seductive."

Qui-Gon gave him a glance redolent of disinterest, and Valorum's tone lost some of its bounce. He pointed.

"There's a ruin of the Killik culture about a hundred kilometers south, but up here, it's all veldt. If you stay quiet for a while, there's a good chance of seeing paalie deer and wild grazers. And there will be some stilt-legs out there --flightless birds -- we might see some of them."

"The living Force is strong with this place," Qui-Gon nodded.

Valorum turned. "You feel it? Right now?"

The Jedi smiled, and instructed. "I can't *not* feel it."

It was a lovely sensation. There were billions of lives here, from the waving grasses and small ground flowers to the water reeds, to the burrowing mice tunneling the ground beneath his feet and insects flying up around him as he walked, to the herd of grazers he felt in the near distance, to some kinds of birds flying almost invisibly high above him.

The veldt was everywhere alive, and the harmony of the place was complete: it was existing as it was meant to exist, through seasons and aeons. In the far distance, there was the other busy-ness in the living force; the bustle of minds and desires where the sentient life forms were, the cities and settlements.

In its own way, this grassland was as peaceful as deep space, but this peace was full of life close at hand that gave him a sensation of happiness entirely different from the delicious isolated balance of _between_.

"And?" Valorum was studying his face. "So is it distracting, or... I dunno, can't be ecstatic or you Jedi would never get anything done.... what's it like?"

_What's it like?_ had been the first serious question Valorum had asked that first day he'd commandeered Qui-Gon's company, it was a question he'd continued to ask over the months. And Qui-Gon had continued to try to answer, discovering that if he expressed it in terms of that exact moment's perception he could almost find words for the unsayable.

Qui-Gon smiled. "This time it is.... It moves here like this little river at our feet, both feeding all the life here and being fed by it -- clarifying, cleansing, dispersing, even dying into it, as animals do." He paused, and made a rare foray into speculation. "If everyone on Coruscant were having a pleasant dream at the same time, perhaps it would feel like this."

Finis usually joked, "clears that right up," as he had the first time, but this time he stared down at the clear rill they were walking along as if the water might hold a text that would help him understand.

"Actually, I used to come out here by myself..." he started quietly, then lapsed into silence.

The truth was, the Jedi wasn't particularly interested. Valorum had a wealth of masks; this would be another.

The Jedi's head came up. ...As am I, he added, and smiled to himself.

The two young men walked slowly through the grassland, looking around, looking at the world at their feet, enjoying the sunshine and the vast silence that was really a constant, delicate music of bugs and birds and grasses rustling in the occasional breezes. They followed the small stream as it meandered through the grasses, walking up its banks, listening to the chuckle of water over rocks, letting their eyes be dazzled by its reflections of the midday sun.

"You could quit, right?"

More than an hour had gone by. Valorum's voice was quiet, as if he didn't want to disturb the silence around them.

Qui-Gon gave him a curious look.

"I mean, you're free to walk away from the Temple and the whole Jedi knight drill anytime you want. It's not a life sentence?"

The Jedi smiled involuntarily. This honor he'd struggled for all his life, this duty he welcomed with joy... "the Jedi knight drill." He could feel the phrase going into his memory permanently. And the bizarre metaphor, a life sentence, for the great accomplishment of becoming a knight?

And yet, it was an interesting question after all.

They had walked on in silence for some minutes before Qui-Gon answered, and then he chose the simplest reply.

"It is a 'life sentence' in the sense that I will always be aware of the Force. But anyone, from initiate to Council member, may leave the Jedi at any time." A pause. "That fact is well known, so I wonder why you would ask?"

Another quarter hour went by, and Qui-Gon once again decided not to chase Valorum's thought. It was too lovely just to go on with this slow walking in a world that consisted only of sunshine and tall grass and a little river in no hurry to flow to its sea, no duty....

"I suppose it's that question of destiny," Valorum said, as if it had only been a moment. "Whether you're lucky to have one, or burdened, or both." He looked at Qui-Gon. "How old were you when you knew you wanted to be a Jedi? Not that you were born to it, but wanted it badly-- Or did you ever?" He didn't wait for an answer.

"I was born a Valorum, so even if I became a nerf herder or a spice junkie, there would always be talk about whether I'd go into politics, or whether I'd wasted some enormous potential, or whether I was cursed by my birth... you know the cliches."

He scratched the back of his neck. "One of my cousins *is* a spice junkie, actually, and that's just what they say about him. Poor bastard, he should change the damn name and go live on the Rim or whatever the hell. It's wrong to suffer."

He took a deep breath and glanced over at Qui-Gon. "But the thing is, for me, it's the only thing I've ever wanted."

Valorum's eyes swept the horizon. "All the things the trashy gossip says I was born for, I want. I want the power, and to know what to do with it. I want the compromises and the pushes, the diplomatic entanglements, the budget issues, and even, Force help me, the bureaucrats. The Chancellorship, the Republic in my hands like a living thing that needs to be guarded and watched and enjoyed and encouraged. I want all of it." He drew a breath. "It makes me the luckiest being in this galaxy to have been *born* to it."

They had paused and were facing each other, both almost expressionless.

Qui-Gon Jinn seemed to sway very slightly, as if bent by the same small breeze that brushed down the tops of the grasses around them.

So now he had met Finis Valorum. And more, was going to like him and wish him well.

Lucky... destined... there is no luck, said Master Yoda's voice in his memory, a maxim drilled into Jedi children at an extremely young age. But to have a destiny, and also to love it--

"Yes," he said.

Valorum felt a flicker of something cold. It wasn't the anxiety of potential rejection; he could handle a snub. This was something else, deeper, almost an atavistic fear of something unknown and maybe unknowable.

Vieia's words came back: 'Are you in love with him?... Then you're afraid of him, and that's even worse.' Valorum shook his head. Is that what it is? Doesn't feel like it, and yet--

Qui-Gon Jinn seemed to him like one of those magic tricks where it looked like the pretty girl is trapped in the box, but then the twelve swords go in -- and through. There were mirrors somewhere, things resting at odd angles that you thought were straight lines; finally you know something isn't there that seems to be, something is there that is completely unperceived. And somehow the consequence is that the girl comes out of the box as fresh and beautiful as ever....

The eighth, ninth, and tenth times you see that trick, you no longer doubt the girl will be fine; you trust completely that she will. Instead you strain to understand *why* -- and you still don't see it.

And yet, 'yes' as an answer -- as if it were a 'yes' to all existence... Maybe that's an answer, Finis thought. 'Yes' -- not a bad word at all.

His expression lightened. "I've spent every waking moment since I was five or six years old knowing that-- and hoping I don't fuck it up." He grinned.

"Yes," Qui-Gon said, in a very different voice. "I hope that also."

Valorum laughed. "I'm touched." All of a sudden he looks preoccupied again... is he supposed to report this to the Jedi Council or something? That some guy wants to be Chancellor? He laughed off his own thought. That would keep a million Jedi busy full-time....

The Jedi flashed a smile, but there was no answer.

The two men swung into step again, following the little rill as it curved through the high grass, pointing things out to each other -- a frog here, an iridescent flying bug there -- as Alderaan's sun began sloping down to the horizon.

Jinn stopped, suddenly concentrating fiercely-- on, as far as Valorum could tell, nothing at all.

Finis whipped his head around, looking for a thranta, a speeder, -- a flaming meteorite -- *anything* that could account for the change in Jinn.

The Jedi had been walking casually, his shoulders a bit curled, his head tipped down, even kicking up his his heels a bit in their shared slow pace. But now he was straight as a knife, his head high, his shoulders taut. And Jinn's eyes were simultaneously empty and terrifying.

"I sense a disturbance in the Force."

Valorum's mouth opened. How many times, as little kids, had he and his friends said those words to each other? Playing Jedi -- waving their hands in the air and pretending they were lifting huge boulders, controlling the minds of evil overlords, or dueling the legendary Dark Lords of the Sith. He hadn't thought about it for years. He'd grown up and gone to a university where Jedi scholars taught and researched without ever once hearing one say that phrase, then flown with a squadron whose pilots would joke "musta been a disturbance in the Force" when someone screwed up.

But this was a real live Jedi knight. And he meant it.

"Where?" Valorum frowned. "Or what? Here? What?"

Qui-Gon was paying him no attention. The frown of concentration eased slightly, and he shook his head, the long hair waving. "They're preparing to leave," he said, almost to himself.

Valorum looked in all directions. Grass, grass, and more grass.

"You wouldn't be kidding, would you?"

It was the first time he'd ever asked a Jedi that. A split second later, Valorum knew that it was also the last. The look he got in return, though no more than a flicker of Qui-Gon's Jinn's eyes, made it impossible.

"Leave - like fly?"

Qui-Gon's eyes flicked to him again.

Valorum decided he saw a _yes_ in that glance. He pulled a slender comlink out of the sleeve of his tunic, explaining, "Old flying buddy. This'll stay unofficial." To the device he said, "Air Ministry - Maxiel ka Invina."

Finis couldn't tell if the Jedi actually heard him, or processed what he'd said. At the moment, Jinn's eyes looked like you could look down them forever without finding bottom, and they were focused past the horizon -- or nowhere.

The line responded. "Whatsamatter, Finis, need directions home?"

"Maxie, is there anything strange flying in and out today?"

"Besides you?"

"Besides me, Maxie."

"Well, gee, Finis, lemme look up all 200,000 flight plans and give you an answer -- just hold your breath for a second while I do that."

Valorum made a noise. "Yeah, sure. Okay, listen -- keep your eyes peeled? I have--" he eyed Jinn "--a tip that something peculiar may be going on..." Could I possibly sound any stupider?

"No specifics," the voice said, just as flatly. "Did they suddenly make you third deputy assistant part-time minister in charge of yanking my crank? 'Cause that's what it sounds like from here."

"Maxie, this isn't bullshit. It's--" he looked at Jinn again-- "something."

"Something? Wake up the Chancellor, mobilize the Jedi -- it's *something*!!" The sarcasm thickened. "Well, shit, Nis, if the planet blows up I guess we'll know your tip was good, huh?"

"Yeah, Maxie, I guess we will," Valorum snapped. "I'll send flowers." He looked at the Jedi yet again.

"Never mind flowers, send me a liter of what you're drinking." The link went dead.

Valorum sighed. "You know if I said the word 'Jedi,' he'd make me take it official." His voice was somewhat apologetic.

Qui-Gon nodded. "Yes." It was something of a surprise that the friend's mockery had made no dent in Valorum's willingness to take the matter seriously.

"So now what?" The young minister was squinting at him.

"We wait," Qui-Gon said.

"Wait?" Waiting was never on Valorum's agenda. "Wait for what? Why don't we go looking for -- whatever it is? And incidentally, what is it?"

Qui-Gon smiled slightly. He knew Valorum was going to hate his answer. "I don't know," he said.

"You don't know?" Valorum's anger stabbed at Qui-Gon, bright as a supernova in the dreamy flow of the living Force around them.

Qui-Gon folded his arms into his robes. "When we were at the reception, there was an intimation of..." he frowned.

"...something," Valorum supplied impatiently. "Bad. So we go get it, right?" When there was no response, he repeated sharply, "*Right?*"

Nothing.

"What do you want to do, Jinn, stand here in the grass until the Force tickles you again?"

But there wasn't time to focus on Valorum.... it was there, so distant, tenuous, but tendrils reaching toward him, carried in the living Force...

"Jinn, I'm going back to the ride, and then to the city. If it's *in* the city, whatever IT is, I'm going to try to find it. You coming?" He turned and headed back at a fast trot, knocking down grasses he'd slid through softly only a few minutes before. He heard the Jedi follow, but still without a word.

Valorum's comlink warbled. He stopped to answer, shooting a glance at Jinn. The Jedi also stopped. His face no longer had the look of faraway abstraction, but it wasn't particularly friendly, either.

"Valorum."

"Yo, Finis, you still breathing?"

Valorum laughed. "Frequently. The planet blow up, did it?"

"Okay, call me an Ewok's uncle, but there is one odd thing. Somebody's changed their flight profile like you wouldn't believe. You maybe want to come into town and see this? It's just a couple altered vectors, but, uh... I don't want to put this over the air."

The laughter left Valorum's face. "Say where."

"My place."

"I'm on the ground in the grass, Maxie. Take an hour."

"I'll be there."

This time, the Jedi started running first.

"Looks like we got here before him," Finis said easily. "It's okay, I know all his codes." Valorum punched a string of numbers into the door pad, and the door opened. He started to move -- began to swing an arm, lift a foot, walk into his friend's apartment --

But Qui-Gon Jinn was sweeping in before him at an incredible speed, hair flying, head high, and a fully ignited green lightsaber in his hands, held vertically at shoulder heighth as he charged into Maxie's entry.

Valorum barely had time to notice how the weapon threw an eerie green light over all the room before the Jedi extinguished it. All at once, it was just young Qui-Gon Jinn standing there again, his cloak settling around him as he stood and looked downward.

There was a Hejjenian dead on the floor, his fur matted with blood that had barely begun to dry. He'd been wearing a vest with pockets, and the pockets were ripped away.

"Maxie." Valorum's face was hollow with shock. He dropped to his knees next to his friend.

Qui-Gon was already concentrating on what to do next. Leave. Leave now. His instincts were clear and he took a step backward, away from Valorum, already looking toward the still open door. Valorum will be safer here, and he can deal with the officials -- but as Qui-Gon turned to the door, a sense of wrongness set in.

He looked back. Valorum? Qui-Gon concentrated, finding no image to say why, but the sense of imperfection reasserted itself as he turned toward the door.

Qui-Gon walked back to the politician and touched his shoulder. "We are not safe here." Valorum's eyes blazed at him. "Deputy minister Valorum," he said gently, "we also are not useful here."

That registered. The police would arrive, and with them hours, if not days, of official questions. Maxie was a Republic appointee, a public personage. They would not be free to act --

-- and Qui-Gon could feel in the Force that events were fluid *now*. Somewhere. Near. Where, what? He closed his eyes momentarily, seeking focus, distantly hearing as Valorum began to speak.

"*....notie negatorie me teesa,* Maxie," Valorum finished, and stood up from his crouch.

The Jedi's eyes opened again; he ran Valorum's words through his memory, then frowned. Valorum had just sworn vengeance or death. This problem is difficult enough without the clutter of a blood oath, he thought. Where does this path lead now?

Valorum's mind was reaching the same conclusions by different means. "Whatever he found is what he died for. So we find it again. A changed flight plan, that can't be hard."

"We need access to data..." Qui-Gon was looking around the room.

"Access," Valorum echoed. "Access is the magic word." He reactivated his comlink.

"The Official Residence of Her Highness Princess Vieia." This majordomo really loved his job; the phrase rolled off his tongue in proud, round tones.

"Tell her it's the young flatterer."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Granted," snapped Valorum. "Relay the message right now."

"Ah, young flatterer, how have you been keeping?" It was the old princess.

"Very well, thank you, Highness. I was wondering if I might call on you? It involves, uh, shall we say a disturbance in the Force?"

"Hold on, child." There was a series of scratches. "We are now on a secure line. Have you misplaced that nice young Jedi?"

A laugh broke out of Valorum despite the terrible circumstances. "No, Highness, but he and I have lost someone else. A junior air minister named Maxiel ka Invina has been murdered. I think it's because of something he found out for me -- for us. We don't know what it was. We need to find out."

"Come here at once," she said, naming coordinates.

"On our way," said Valorum.

They climbed back up the crevasse, into the old neighborhood where the hangers and passageways had been carved out of sheer rock. Both men had grim, set faces, and they didn't talk.

And, for the second time since they'd landed, Jinn jumped and shoved Valorum sideways. The minister was still fighting for balance as a bolt of energy splashed against a wall behind them, brightening the street momentarily and breaking rock fragments out of the building.

Both young men reacted with trained reflexes. As a result, a moment later Valorum was flat on the ground and rolling swiftly behind a wall, then turning to assess what cover his companion had found. But the Jedi's reflexes had led him to an entirely different series of actions. Safely behind cover, Finis propped himself on his elbows and watched, almost bemused, as the Jedi defended himself.

It was an incredible sight: the big young man standing so still, the saber in his hands a mere blur of green light. Valorum counted something like 20 shots in close succession. Not one caused the Jedi any trouble to deflect. It was almost as if Jinn would sweep his saber in some direction and their attacker would obligingly fire blaster bolts to exactly that spot. Eventually, the Jedi swatted the shots back toward their source, splashing them off a wall at the far end of the street.

"If I knew you could do that, I wouldn't have wrecked my clothes," Finis said when the shots stopped, getting up and dusting himself off.

He was lucky to keep track of Jinn, who ran both swiftly and quietly. They dodged through the old streets, and then Valorum followed the last turn Qui-Gon had made and nearly tripped over him. "Damn, Jinn, didn't anyone ever teach you not to abandon your wingman?" he hissed, trying to catch his breath. "Besides, _you're_ escorting _me_, remember?"

The Jedi's breathing was as smooth as if he'd been kneeling there for hours. Again he threw Valorum an expressionless glance.

"So?"

The Jedi angled his head toward a hanger bay. The stern end of a transport could be seen inside.

Valorum hissed a curse: it was red, for diplomatic status. "You wouldn't have a spare blaster hiding under that cloak, would you?" This look meant 'no.' "*Any* weapon?" 'No' again. Valorum glanced around. Alderaan the Beautiful.... no trash in the streets. Nothing useful like a steel pipe lying around when you really wanted one.

"Jinn, maybe we should call Ald Sec..." although a diplomatic ship is immune from everything planetary security forces could do, Valorum finished his own thought.